Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Rev. Bryant J. Williams III:
 
1.  You wrote:  “God's predetermine will that the ‘elder will serve the 
younger’."
 
W-h-y  is that such a major theme in the Patriarchal narratives?  That was 
not the view of the Hebrews or Jews in the 1st millennium BCE.  Why does the 
firstborn son get the shaft, and properly so, in every generation in the 
Patriarchal narratives?  Haran, Ishmael, Esau and Reuben.  4 for 4.
 
And why is it that both Ishmael and Esau are archers, who hunt with a bow?
Esau is compared unfavorably with Jacob at Genesis 25: 27, but we need to 
try to isolate the precise reason for that.
 
2.  You wrote:  “Both of Jacob's and Esau's characters cast in negative 
lights.
        a.    Esau's despising of his rights as Firstborn and the Blessing.
        b.    Jacob's conniving.”
 
That’s not how the Hebrew author views Jacob.  Immediately before the 
selling of the birthright story, we are explicitly told that Jacob is TM, 
that 
is, “upright” and “proper” and “well-rounded” and “complete” and “a man of 
the community”.
Esau apparently thinks that the reason why Isaac favors Esau over Jacob has 
little or nothing to do with birth order, but rather has everything to do 
with, in Esau’s opinion, the fact that Esau is allegedly much more 
meritorious than Jacob.  In fact, Jacob has more merit than Esau:  the twins 
are 
equally aggressive, but Jacob is smarter than Esau.
 
Note that Isaac and Rebekah do not decide which twin son will be chosen to 
be the leader of the next generation of early monotheists based on “Esau's 
despising of his rights as Firstborn and the Blessing”, or on “Jacob's 
conniving” on that occasion.  The point of that story, rather, is to show 
that 
Jacob, unlike Esau, shrewdly discerned that the basis for Isaac’s favoritism 
of Esau was not based on the true respective merits of the boys, but rather 
was based on the non-meritorious fact of birth order.  We slowly start to see 
what the Hebrew author is trying to tell us.
 
3.  You wrote:  “Isaac's and Rebekkah's favoritism toward Esau and Jacob, 
respectively.”
 
As the Hebrew author presents it, Rebekah is not portrayed as showing 
improper favoritism toward Jacob.  Rather, Rebekah, who is the smartest woman 
in 
the Hebrew Bible, is portrayed as having correctly discerned the divine 
Will.  Rebekah’s dream about the elder serving, or being served by, the 
younger 
was ambiguous on its face in the Hebrew language.  But Rebekah discerned 
that it unambiguously put a focus on birth order.  Brilliant Rebekah was able 
to follow up on that key clue and see that the first two Patriarchs were 
younger sons, not firstborn sons.  On that basis, Rebekah correctly deduced 
that 
the divine Will was that a younger son must be chosen to be the leader of 
the next generation of early monotheists.  That was not “favoritism”, nor 
was it “undue”.  Rather, that was divine inspiration.
 
Isaac favored Esau, based on improper favoritism for the firstborn, until 
the 11th hour, but not beyond then.  Isaac knows it’s Jacob impersonating 
Esau:  “21Then Isaac said to Jacob, ‘Please come near, that I may feel you, 
my 
son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not.’  22So Jacob went 
near to Isaac his father, who felt him and said, ‘The voice is Jacob’s 
voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.’"  Genesis 27: 21-22.  Isaac knew 
Rebekah had put Jacob up to this.  Isaac was a man who loved his own wife, 
and 
knew that she was incredibly smart.  Isaac finally decided, at the 11th 
hour, that his wife Rebekah had correctly discerned the divine Will, and that 
Isaac should not try to thwart that.  So Isaac does the right thing by 
following his beloved wife’s advice and selecting Jacob over Esau.  Sarah had 
insisted that Abraham choose Isaac over Ishmael, and YHWH had explicitly told 
Abraham to follow what Sarah said: “But God said to Abraham, ‘…Whatever Sarah 
says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be 
named.’”  Genesis 21: 12.  And though it’s not nearly as obvious, Jacob in 
turn will end up honoring Leah’s dying wish that the leader of the next 
generation of early monotheists must be, like each previous successor 
Patriarch, 
a son of the previous Patriarch’s original main wife #1, which knocks out 
Jacob’s favorite sons Joseph and Benjamin.
 
The divine Will remains the same throughout the Patriarchal narratives.  
The winning son is always a younger son, who initially is not his father’s 
favorite son, and whose mother is his father’s original main wife #1.  The 
Hebrew author views Rebekah positively for brilliantly discerning the divine 
Will.  Please note how YHWH reacts to Rebekah’s choice of Jacob, in the 
super-famous Jacob’s Ladder sequence:  "‘I am the LORD, the God of Abraham 
your 
father and the God of Isaac.  The land on which you [Jacob] lie I will give 
to 
you and to your offspring. 14Your offspring shall be like the dust of the 
earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the 
north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families 
of 
the earth be blessed. 15Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever 
you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until 
I 
have done what I have promised you.’"  Genesis 28: 13-15.  YHWH does not 
view either Jacob or Rebekah as having done any improper conniving.  Rather, 
YHWH knows that their audacious actions have served to implement the divine 
Will.
 
4.  You wrote:  “Esau's continual unbelief versus Jacob's growing belief in 
the God of Abraham and Isaac.”
 
Although that sounds logical to us today, in fact that theme never appears 
in the Patriarchal narratives.  YHWH does not appear to Esau.  Esau is given 
no opportunity to either embrace or reject YHWH.  “Unbelief” or lack of 
proper religious belief is not a factor in the Patriarchal narratives.  Esau 
properly gets the shaft because he is the firstborn son, not because he was 
given the chance to embrace YHWH but failed to do so.  Rebekah’s dream when 
she was pregnant was  n-o-t  that one son would embrace YHWH and the other 
would not.  No, her divinely-inspired dream was about birth order.
 
5.  You wrote:  “True, Esau was the hunter and Jacob was the shepherd, the 
text does not say any more than that.”
 
As teenagers, indeed “Esau was the hunter and Jacob was the shepherd”.  
But the text does in fact say more than that.  Genesis 36: 6-7 tells us that 
Esau in due course became a shepherd, and lived the same lifestyle as Jacob.  
Moreover, hunting per se is not bad.  Rather, it’s the type of hunting that 
Esau is doing, and the reason why Esau is doing that hunting, that reflect 
badly on Esau at Genesis 25: 27.  This can be seen from an examination of 
Late Bronze Age burials in southern Canaan, as I will plan to discuss in a 
future post on this thread.  We need to approach Genesis 25: 27 from an 
historical perspective, and not impose our own modern view on what the Hebrew 
author is trying to tell us.
 
6.  You wrote:  “Both Esau and Jacob were extremely selfish to the point of
despising (Esau) and deception (Jacob).”
 
That’s not how the Hebrew author views these matters.  Esau’s fatal flaw 
is that he is the firstborn son.  You yourself said that quite nicely at the 
beginning of your post: “God's predetermine will that the ‘elder will serve 
the younger’."
Jacob does not engage in deception in the selling of the birthright 
sequence.  True, Jacob does engage in deception in the sequence that 
convinces 
Isaac to make the right decision by choosing Jacob over Esau.  But that was 
based on Rebekah brilliantly discerning the divine Will.  YHWH never 
criticizes 
Jacob, even obliquely, for Jacob’s actions regarding obtaining the blessing 
from Isaac.  On the contrary, YHWH blesses Jacob unequivocally.
 
7.  You wrote:  “It appears that eisegesis is raising its head again.”
 
That’s what you do in decrying Jacob’s “deception” and Rebekah’s “
favoritism” of Jacob.  The Hebrew author is making a very different point:  
Esau 
gets the shaft, and properly so, just like Haran, Ishmael and Reuben, on the 
basis of being the firstborn son.  That peculiar, unrelenting theme makes no 
sense in a 1st millennium BCE context, and you yourself may not like it.  
But it fits the historical time period of the Patriarchal narratives 
perfectly.
 
Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois